Facing Rape Charge, Larry Cavallaro Is Briefly Booked at Flagler Jail and Released on $100,000 Bond

Larry A. Cavallaro, the 72-year-old man arrested last week on a charge of drugging and raping a woman in Flagler Beach, was extradited from Orange County and booked at the Flagler County jail Wednesday. His bond was set at $100,000. His attorneys asked the court to either let Cavallaro out on his own recognizance while he awaits trial, or to set a “reasonable” bond.

The State Attorney filed the first-degree felony charge of sexual battery on an incapacitated person on Monday following a Flagler County Sheriff’s investigation into the incident. The rape is alleged to have taken place on Dec. 17, 2017 at 2653 North Ocean Shore Boulevard in Beverly Beach. A 40-year-old woman and a 27-year-old woman, both waitresses at a local restaurant, had gone to Cavallaro’s home for drinks. He made them one from a recipe he said he got off the internet. The 40-year-old says she fell down after just one drink and remembered waking up as Cavallaro was engaging in non-consensual oral sex on her. The woman’s husband says he surprised them both in the act after becoming suspicious and going to the Beverly Beach house. By then the younger woman had left, though she too reported to detectives that she got sick at home and found that strange, from just one drink.

In an interview with detectives, Cavallaro “stated yes, there was oral sex,” according to his arrest report, but he “did not go into details as to why or how the oral sex occurred.” He told detectives the woman was seeking to make out with him.

He was arrested last week in Winter Park. On Monday, one of his attorneys, Robert Fisher of Longwood, filed a motion arguing that in Flagler County, the schedule for a first-degree felony sets bond at $15,000. (The $15,000 applies to non-violent first degree felonies, and the schedule notes that suspects may be held without bond for offenses not specified in the schedule, along with several offenses that are specified.) The motion argues that Cavallaro has lived in various houses in Central Florida for 44 years, owns land in Deltona, the house in Beverly Beach, four mobile home parks in North Carolina, and has owned his own company, The Cavallaro Group, since 1992. Fisher states Cavallaro has had “no prior contact with the criminal justice system,” and argues that there’s no “probability of danger” that he’d flee if released. (Cavallaro had owned an art gallery in Flagler Beach several years ago.)

The following day, two different attorneys–Matthew Ferry and Lindsey Ferry of Winter Park–filed a similar motion arguing for his release “on bond and reasonable conditions of release.”

Early this afternoon–at 1:22 p.m.–Cavallaro had posted bail on $100,000 bond, and was released.